British Columbia Ambulance Service - Wages and Benefits

Wages and Benefits

Wages are paid according to license qualification, years of service and supervisory status. For full-time employees, there is also a difference based on whether the paramedic is regularly or irregularly scheduled. As of April 1, 2009, the starting wage for an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) is $19.29 per hour; for a Primary Care Paramedic (PCP), it is $20.57 per hour or $21.19 per hour with an IV endorsement (PCP-IV); and the call-out wage for an Advanced Care Paramedic (ACP) starts at $27.91 per hour. For the first 6 years of employment, part-time employees are given 11% in lieu of benefits and 6% vacation pay on top of their wage. After their six-year employment anniversary, part-time employees are given some medical and dental benefits which start at the beginning of the next fiscal year and they lose the 11% in lieu of benefits. The first (and only significant) wage increase for part-time employees is at five years of service and brings the respective qualifications up to $23.91, $25.15, $25.78 and $31.20 per hour.

(* D.O.H. may be adjusted if a part-time paramedic does not submit at least eight shifts of availability to their primary operator in a given month.)

Full-time wages are salary-based but an hourly wage is often referred to as shorthand for calculation of overtime. Without getting into details, the hourly rate for a full-time, regularly scheduled employee on an Alpha pattern with three years experience at that license qualification is as follows;

EMR (i.e., Transfer Fleet): $27.86 per hour; PCP: $29.33; PCP-IV: $30.05; ACP: $36.40; ITT/CCP: $37.90.

Generally, part-time seniority does not count toward any full-time seniority or pay scale. The only exception is that a part-time paramedic who responds to 300 calls per year will receive one year's experience pay for each of (up to) three years when going full-time. That is to say, a part-time paramedic with at least 900 calls equally divided over three years will start at the 3-Year pay scale when accepting a full-time position. In the table below, for the ACP, ITT and CCP wage columns, it is assumed that the wage increments for 10, 15, 20 and 25 year marks are at the 3-year experience pay level. This is meant to show what an established paramedic at that licence qualification could expect in a full-time position. Once a paramedic reaches the third year of experience pay, further increments average $0.29 every five years; after 25 years, only $1.15 per hour ($2511.60 annually) is gained on top of the three-year experience pay. This reflects "years of service", rather than "experience" per se.

(* Regularly Scheduled; Three Years Experience; Alpha Pattern)

Although these wage scales reflect what a BCAS Paramedic will earn "on paper", these wages are "factored" through a complicted formula whereas the wages are reduced significantly.